User talk:Octarinemage/archive1
Hi, welcome to Sryth Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the The Ruined City of Tarn page. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- Scarbrow (Talk) 06:12, 27 July 2009 Map guidelines Hi, I'd like to point out there are several map guidelines we've put forth in category:Maps. I've corrected the file name according to them. Thank you for providing the Tarn map. Scarbrowtalk 16:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC) Just a question about armor Can a magic user wear plate? I can find no negative affects for a magic user wearing plate. Thanks for your help before hand. Dragonscloak * Armor, whatever variety it may be, has no impact on magic usage. Sryth is not strict D&D. Wear anything you like. :) --Octarinemage 21:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC) Southeast Tysa rollback Hi, i've rolled back your changes to the link, for the moment I think it's better to link directly to the Quest pages. In the future, I plan to add a template that will automatically link to both the quest page and the Quest List's Questbox, given only the name of the quest. Scarbrowtalk 13:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC) deleting a character Is it possible? never mind i found it —Preceding unsigned comment added by dragonscloak (talk • ) Items and quests Hi, Octarinemage. I wanted to give you a warning and several advices about your last changes. * When you want to move a page to a Quest page, leaving a redirect behind, you can use the Move button in the top of the page. It's convenient because it also moves the edit history, and makes it easier to trace changes. * We're trying to move in the direction of keeping Questboxes and Itemboxes free of spoilers. On these last days you're including more and more information on the Notes section of both Itemboxes and Checkboxes that would be better left out in the quest or item page. I've reverted some of the most egregious. Please restrain yourself in these sections. * Itemboxes were created for Item pages (well-originally they were created for embedding them in pages, but now that has changed), and Item pages were made to be transcluded. I've seen you embedding more and more Itemboxes on pages, some times duplicating Item pages that were already created. Specially annoying for me are your changes to Misc Items, and I'm trying to refrain myself from the temptations of rolling back everything. I'll take a slower look later. Please transclude with the double curly brackets ( ) instead of creating new Itemboxes, when at all possible. * I told you in a Talk page, and maybe you didn't saw it then, but please when you move text straight out of a page, specially Quest List, and onto a Quest page, leave the original text in the Talk page. It's interesting historical material, and it helps both you and future editors to check that you haven't left anything behind. * And please keep when you can the standard sections for Quest pages (General Information, Walkthrough, Tips, etc). They are standard for a reason. * As I'm checking your last Quest pages, I'm forced to say: stop. Stop and take your time creating quest pages. Don't simply copy text from a page to the other: that way, you're just putting the junk away where we can't see it. Right now, the quests without Quest page are beacons, we know that we can work on them. But if you just move the inelegant text to its secluded location, we can't know what quest needs more work unless we enter each quest page to read it. So I repeat: take your time. Don't just move it, improve it. * And last (for now) please take care of the details. You just made the 8 quest pages of the 7 Goblins saga without realizing that you were omitting all of the prerequisites (they're serialized). As you see, they're only small things, but they add up and I have to spend time correcting them instead of writing, what further annoys me. Otherwise, I'm pleased with your work. Keep it up. Scarbrowtalk 00:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC) I'm too tired to respond to every point you've made. Most are indeed valid and I see now my mistakes. Oh, well. I can at least immediately respond to one thing. I will indeed stop. Thanks for your time. I'm sorry for adding to your workload when I thought I might have been lessening it. --Octarinemage 01:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC) :When I said stop, I meant "for a while". Sorry if I was snappy, I'm tired too. I suppose that the same would happen to anybody trying to track my edits. I'll take another look tomorrow, when I'm better rested. Scarbrowtalk 02:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC) TOClimit and tables The Toclimit on Quest List was a consensus of the time. The idea is that the Quest List is comprised only of locations, and the locations should only contain Questboxes. Since Questboxes from Quest pages shouldn't contain Headinglevels, that shouldn't be so big of a problem now, but in time, when each and every quest was a heading, the TOC spanned several screens full of text, making it hard to consult. This way, if you know the name or location of the quest, you can find it quickly, but if you just want to look up a location, you won't be confused by a BIG TOC. Another issue: I've seen you've been putting format into tables. I'm all for it, but with your grasp of CSS, couldn't you create a class that could formate tables accordingly, instead of having to design it on a case-by-case basis? Scarbrowtalk 21:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC) : Anything that could help standardize and make things easier and quicker for editors is not a waste of time, doesn't matter how much. Go on, please. Scarbrowtalk 01:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC) :I've taken a brief look, and it looks very promising. Will review it more thoroughly tomorrow. Scarbrowtalk 04:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC) ---- :I've now taken a good look at the template, and I'm frankly impressed. You made it work. Although, curious as I am, I wanted to see if I could modify Template:Table2columnsrow to allow for more than 2 columns (after all, that is the main reason to use a row template, adding columns easily). However, the syntax is too complex for me. I can understand the first part, }| -valign=top } }}} :, if it has 2 parms, puts a row with them. The second part, }|1x|void}}| }} :just popped my eyeballs. What the does the outer pair of brackets do? And how do you call the 1x and void templates without using brackets? And what does the entire fragment do?. I've always respected people able to code something that I cannot understand, but please, tell me about this bit of magic. Now for the CSS... Scarbrowtalk 21:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC) ::Allow me a day or two to formulate a more expository and cogent reply to this and to gather all the external references that support it. Briefly it has something to do with the editor we use to write wiki text and how it inserts or deletes newlines at the end of a block of text. The wiki parser must first expand the text before it passes the result to the table transcluder, a problem that has confounded and vexed many a programmers that code tables into their templates. If param, call 1x, which adds a newline, else call void, which doesn't. If you count the number of brackets, you'll find they are the correct number - of closing and opening brackets. That's the magic. Fully expanded, you'll see how the brackets surround the 1x and void correctly - it resolves to or The pipe is so it will never pass an undefined value. You can't use HTML linebreaks because when it passes the expansion to the table transcluder, it will see those as text and not markup. I am also working on a version that will allow a variable amount of columns to make it more flexible. I will add the sample code also to my next reply. (Believe it or not, I only learned to code in wiki about 2 weeks ago. I scoured the net for a solution and found these and I will include those references in my next reply.) Sorry for the numerous edits here. It was 3 in the morning and I was having problems between thinking of this and of a nice cup of java. --Octarinemage 11:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC) ---- : I've taken a look to the CSS, too. I'm glad you're so good at it, that means I won't have to relearn it. I suppose you're planning to use that class from within the template, isn't it?. If you want to install a style in this wiki, you must add it to MediaWiki:Common.css. I think you can do it yourself, but if you have any problems contact me. Scarbrowtalk 21:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC) :: That is one place I thought of using it, but I meant it more as an alternative to using the table2columns template. The intention was to simply add class="GrayScaleTable" to any existing table extant on any page and, voila, we have a grey-scaled table without all the coding fuss. However, as mentioned in the notes, IE is not particularly interested in cooperating smoothly with the W3C standards other browsers comply with and enjoy. That wouldn't normally be a problem, but IE is the most widely used browser today, and a little extra coding would still be required, though not much. Still, that's a little more knowledge and remembrance editors don't need, lifting the whole process to the verge of the arcane. We're not a cabal of priests after all. So, it becomes a personal choice for an editor to use it or not, and that's not exactly what a standard means. --Octarinemage 11:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC) Erasing yourself? Hi, Octarinemage I've realized you've erased your personal information from your user page, and marked your Sryth Test Page for deletion. I hope you're not planning on abandoning us. I've taken the liberty to roll back your changes to your personal page, as a gesture of "don't go" (I don't know how to express myself better in this field) Scarbrowtalk 02:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC) Re: Sryth Encyclopedia Fixed. Good catch :) Scarbrowtalk 21:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC) MR rating Hi, Octarinemage. I've seen you've modified some early quests's MR ratings. As you can see in Combat, 3+ values are not the best choice for asessing the difficulty of an encounter, since any MR above the maximum for a given encounter will be listed as 3+ (if it's 3+ at MR 50, it will still be 3+ at MR 150). For this reason, if you can't ascertain the "correct" 9+ value, it's better to list any other(s) value(s) rather than a 3+ one. Thank you. Scarbrowtalk 10:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC) : The 3+ rating would be a good choice if you explicitly state that's the lowest character's MR value for the enemy to be 3+ to hit, as would be 18+ if stated that it's the character's highest one. As this is quite long and tiresome to indicate on each case, the consensus around here has been using the 9+ value, if possible (9+ is the only value that is unique in the 30-value range for an enemy, as seen in Combat#Melee_Rating_and_to-hit_numbers). If it's not possible or convenient, or if the enemy's MR varies somewhat (it's still unknown what causes these fluctuations on some enemies and not in others) putting several indicative values is usually more informative than just one (i.e. 4+ at MR 60, 11+ at MR 74). By doing it this way, it's even possible to calculate the correct 9+ value (in this example, 9+ at MR 72) given enough values from different encounters. Scarbrowtalk 15:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC) On Sryth Test Page explanations Hi, I'd like if you could leave the painstainkingly detailed explanations you put on Sryth Test Page in some page, for further reference. Maybe in the doc for one of the table-building templates? Scarbrowtalk 15:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC) Gray Scaling Tables I have to bow again to your knowledge. You've made a very thorough explanation, and the chess board example is very ingenious. However, I doubt that most users need to go further than first example. I'll put up a News item featuring your creation. Where else do you think we should advertise it? Scarbrowtalk 05:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC) Guidelines for Editors Hi, it's a good idea, like many of yours lately. Why don't you start a small page, and we'll build it together later? Scarbrowtalk 19:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC) There is already a page on How to document Items and Quests. You can start improving that one. Scarbrowtalk 05:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC) : I have added a few thoughts. You can remove categories from the Categories editing section at the bottom of the page. It was probably added because of an incorrect link to Category:Templates. Corrected. Scarbrowtalk 10:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC) :I've added a batch of compliments as you suggested. Why don't you add some lines to your user page taking credit for your hard work, so people who visit you can see your achievements at a glance? Scarbrowtalk 07:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC) I wouldn't think you're banned I doubt Scarbrow banned you -- you're a valued contributor here (outstripping me of late it seems, hmmm). In a related way, I had a lot of difficulties the other day with this site, and it didn't even give me error messages. Just blank screens and sloooooooooow load times. That's not to say that accidents don't happen. I can't do anything about this using my account, but thought I would at least offer the encouragement.--Hastifertalk 19:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC) : Of course you weren't banned, Octarinemage. I also encounter the same problems from time to time, slow loading pages and even problems when previewing or saving, when Wikia's servers are a bit busy. There are hours at a time when I can barely edit, but trying several times usually gets me through. I also use Firefox, BTW. I don't even want to use IE. Scarbrowtalk 12:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC) :Another note on Firefox: You can use an extension called Firebug that will alert you of JS errors and the like in pages you view. Scarbrowtalk 13:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC) Updated GrayScaleTable css But in Firefox, the left and top sections are missing their borders. Is there any problem? Scarbrowtalk 12:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC) It's also a lot clearer now, to the point that I wouldn't call that "gray" anymore. Titles could also use a little more color difference from the rest of the text. Scarbrowtalk 12:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC) :Updated. By the way, since you're quickly becoming the resident expert on customization, you could also learn how to make a custom wiki skin, so we can have a "Sryth-like" background and that kind of things. You can ssk Joddelle on the forum about how she designed the forum skin, maybe that helps. Scarbrowtalk 13:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC) : Maybe it's me, but I still don't see the left and top borders on FF, even when forcing render on pages. Scarbrowtalk 13:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC) :: Leave it as it is now, it's fine. Now I see the borders, didn't think about the cache (D'oh!). Scarbrowtalk 17:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC) re: Map Directions Hi, I've seen the Template:MapDirections and it seems fine. It will be useful for some pages (Wurmwrit's looks good), however, it's not quite universal. Take Foxfell Forest, for example. The extremely idiosyncratic style of developing of our GM leaves us with inconsistencies like that. About the wiki skin, you can start investigating in Help:Wikia custom skins, Help:Skins and Help:Customizing_Monaco (much of what Havoc did here initially comes from there). And a last thing: I'm looking for another admin or two. What do you think? Do you see yourself experienced enough (and are willing) to take that post? If would help greatly to speed up the skin and CSS modifications to the site. If you only want the post temporarily, I can provide that, too. Scarbrowtalk 23:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC) : It looks good. The reason for most pages to contain the TysaNavTableSmall is to make Location categorizing easier. That template adds to Category:Locations, and offer a small graphical aid to know where the location is. I think we could keep the TysaNavTableSmall template at the bottom of locations pages, and the MapDirections one at the top, besides the "Location description", to keep an uniform look on all Location pages. Scarbrowtalk 20:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC) :: Sounds good. --Octarinemage 21:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC) :: Yes, I feel only Location pages need to have the full "address" tree, since Quest pages have a link to their inmediate Location page in the Questbox, or at least they should. I expect I haven't been too disruptive with my little "bot" (only semi-automated and very crude, but it works). Tonight I'll add another batch, and it probably will be even longer, but I'll try to mark as "minor" so it can be hidden in Recent Changes. Scarbrowtalk 15:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC) :: You have a bot? Can we name it, Mononoke? (Just kidding.) Ok, sounds good. --Octarinemage 16:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC) Promotion Then please accept the burden of adminship with grace. You are promoted. Use your new powers wisely, as I'm still on watch and can demote you if you fail to please my evil schemes... :) Scarbrowtalk 23:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC) Bwahaha, the next step is to conquer the world... or, at least, parts of California. --Octarinemage 00:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC) Problems with TableX Hi, I was trying to use TableX for the table on Item:1233 Tzal-Toalth. I used this code: Well, see for yourself. Scarbrowtalk 00:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC) It's the plus signs in the cells. They are being interpreted as numbers, not strings. For a temporary fix, until I can figure out how why the extended parser functions are behaving like that, use + for the plus signs. I know it's a pain in the behind, but I'll let you know what I find... --Octarinemage 02:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC) : You don't need to fix it right away, I used a regular table with the GrayScaleTable class and it's already done. Take your time, I just reported to you a peculiar behavior since I thought that would pique your interest. Scarbrowtalk 02:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC) :: I'm downright flabbergasted. --Octarinemage 02:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC) ::: In case you didn't see my other reply, this is fixed and done. --Octarinemage 21:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)